


Support System

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: prompt-in-a-box, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2099958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the firesale, nightmares are just part of the landscape. John and Matt help each other heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Support System

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's prompt_in_a_box community for the prompt, "strength".
> 
> * * *

Even with the distance – even with Gabriel's gun digging painfully into his shoulder – he can see the sweat dripping down the kid's face as he concentrates. His fingers fly over the keys and Gabriel starts counting down and John wrenches his gaze away from Matt's feverish tapping to look at his daughter. Her chin is held high and she's not struggling anymore, and as soon as Matt finishes decoding the program she's going to be dead, and he can't think of a damn thing to do to prevent it.

"Running out of time," Gabriel says.

"I know, I just… there!" Matt says. He turns the screen toward Gabriel, hobbles back with his hands held high. "It's all there, all the money. All yours. You can just let us go and get on that plane—"

"Thank you for your analysis of the situation, Mr. Farrell—"

"There's no need for anybody to get hurt here!" Matt says frantically. "You've got what you wanted!"

"But I think I'll go with my original plan," Gabriel finishes.

John makes one final desperate rush to get free, and this time when Gabriel shoves the butt of the gun into his wound the searing pain actually makes his knees weaken. He slumps forward, manages to get one hand free to reach toward Lucy. Her eyes are brimming with tears, her lips trembling with fear, but she still stands tall.

"Do it," Gabriel says.

The thug doesn't hesitate, and time slows down. John has an eternity to watch the goon's finger tighten on the trigger, to hear the Lucy's last intake of breath, to see his daughter's brains splatter over the concrete.

 

John jerks awake, the final image from the nightmare still burned on his retinas. There is no moment of disorientation, no panicky scrambling for his piece. He knows immediately that it was just a dream, but that doesn't still the rapid thudding of his heart or cool the sweat drenching his body and the thin sheets.

He sits up slowly, and swears that his shoulder wound feels more painful – more raw – than it did before he went to bed that night.

He splashes cold water on his face in the bathroom, raises his head and watches it drip from his jowls. He closes his eyes briefly and the dream returns in all its technicolour glory, Lucy's head snapping back and her eyes wide and shocked and the blood and gore drenching her long brown hair…

John clutches the edges of the sink and knows that there will be no more sleep for him tonight.

He detours back to the bedroom for his book, is halfway through the darkened living room when he notices Matt sitting at the kitchen table. The light from the window above the sink falls on the kid's bent head and slumping shoulders, and he's struck for a moment at how rare it is not to see Matt bustling with nervous energy, arms flailing and mouth going twenty miles a minute. Three days on the road and two weeks living with the kid and he already knows he's gotten addicted to all that frenetic motion.

He stifles a sigh, fingers clenching tighter on the book. That's a problem for another sleepless night.

He shuffles into the kitchen, sets his book on the table. "Can't sleep?"

Matt twitches, like a marionette whose strings have suddenly been tugged. He tries out a wan smile that's doesn't reach his eyes. "Oh, hey. McClane. Sorry if I… I hope I didn't wake you? I just… uh… got hungry."

The only thing on the table is the crumbs from last night's garlic bread, the ones that the kid swore he'd clean up before he hit the hay. "You're not eating anything," he points out.

Matt blinks. "Right. I should probably—"

"Bad dream?"

Matt falters in the act of rising, slides bonelessly back down into his chair instead. "Something like that."

"I hear ya," John says. "You wanna talk about it?"

"No," Matt says quickly.

John scrubs a hand over his chin before pulling out a chair. He expects Matt to reach for his crutches and scramble up and away, start making noises about throwing together an omelet and complaining about the lack of fresh vegetables in the produce bin. But the kid just tenses his shoulders, but when John does nothing but run his fingers over the spine of his book the tightness in his frame slowly dissipates.

"First time I had to use my gun," John says, "there was a heist at a jewelry store—"

"I told you I didn't want to talk about it," Matt snaps.

"Maybe I do," John says calmly. He runs his thumb slowly over the book, back and forth. He'd been reading that day in the squad car, waiting for Bernstein to get back from some greasy spoon with their lunch. It had been a slow day, nothing more than rousting a few punks off the corners and a simple domestic disturbance.

"Okay," Matt says softly.

"Some mom and pop joint," he continues. "Should have been a quick grab and run, except the owner had a sawed-off behind the counter. Turned into a bloodbath, and now the perp's facing murder charges. Makes a man desperate."

He still remembers the call coming over the radio, Sophia's voice calm and bland as she relayed the details. Bernstein left the siren off, which was how they were able to get behind the bastard in the alley.

"My partner and I split up. Bernstein had it figured that he'd head out to 19th, make for the congestion on the street and try to blend in, so he had me take the back. Turned out the perp was a Korean national, had only been in the city two weeks. Didn't know 19th from the hole in his ass. Next thing I know he's shooting at me from behind a parked car, so I returned fire. He missed. I didn't."

"Was he… did you..?"

John blinks back to the present. The kid is watching him, those big brown eyes wide and solemn.

"I was still in uniform and every day for the next month I thought about leaving the force. The nightmares lasted for half a year. What I'm sayin', kid, is I had training in how to handle this shit and killing that guy still fucked me up six ways to Sunday."

Matt draws himself up, his expressive face again becoming closed and drawn. "I'm not fucked up."

"Then you're a machine," John says. He sighs, gives in and sweeps the bread crumbs into a tidy pile in the middle of the table. "And you were apparently raised in a damn pigsty," he adds lightly. "Could've sworn it was you who said 'I'll finish cleaning that, John, you just go to bed' last night."

"Yeah," Matt says absently.

John swipes his hands over his pajama bottoms, leans back in his chair. The kid has gone back to staring into space, and John makes a quick decision, opens the book to tug out his bookmark. The business card has gone through the ringer over the years, but the name and number are still readable. He slides it across the table.

"What's this?"

John nods toward the card. "Someone you can talk to."

Matt sniffs. "I don't do shrinks."

"She helped me," John says. "She can—"

"I dreamt that I couldn't unravel the code," Matt says abruptly. "It was my own program but I couldn't figure out how to break it, which is… ridiculous, okay? And the thing is, I _knew_ that in the dream. I knew that it doesn't work like that, but I still couldn't get my fingers to type in the right numbers and then you were doing your little heroics with Gabriel and I was so caught up in trying to decode the damn program that I was too slow with the gun and then… Emerson had Lucy, and I couldn't… he put the gun to her head and Lucy…she…"

"Yeah," John says. He shudders around the dream-image of Lucy's brains pattering wetly onto the cement, of her slow motion fall from Emerson's arms. "Me too, kid."

"I'm not sorry I killed him," Matt says defiantly.

"Good. Don't be sorry about doin' what you had to do to save your own skin. To save my daughter's life." John closes his eyes briefly, pushes away the image of dream-Lucy that wants to intrude. His daughter is fine, is taking some well-deserved time off with her mother in California, and it's all because of this kid in front of him. He can never forget that. He opens his eyes, lifts his good shoulder. "Doesn't mean that your damn brain isn't going to try to fuck you over about it."

Matt reluctantly pulls the card toward him, taps a finger on the worn paper. "I don't like shrinks," Matt says. "Want to make everything about how your dad smacked you when you were five or all the existential angst you still feel at being left off the list for Scott Morrow's eighth birthday party. They're so full of bullshit."

John bites back on the observation that Matt may be speaking from experience in the seeing-therapists department; also chooses not to share that he holds a similar opinion on most of the so-called psychotherapists out there. But Sally is different.

"I've got an appointment on Tuesday," he says blandly instead. "You could tag along if you want. Just to meet her."

Matt pulls his hand away from the card. "And maybe we could… I mean, when these nightmares start to… maybe we could talk about them. Like this."

He didn't exactly agree to come on Tuesday, but John notices that he didn't exactly say no, either. "Sure, Matt. Like this."

"Because I don't think I can go back to bed tonight," Matt adds quickly. "Or possibly ever. So."

"Yeah, me neither," John says. He stretches his aching shoulder, juts his chin toward the cabinet with the cards and the board games. "You know how to play gin rummy?"

"Know how?" Matt says. "Do I know how to…. McClane, not only do I know how to play gin rummy, but I will kick your ass."

John smiles at the return of some of the exuberance in the kid's voice. By Tuesday he'll come around. And until then, they'll just rely on each other. Been doing that since the firesale, anyway.


End file.
